


Angels in London

by NothingYouCouldLove



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bromance, Character Death, Crossover, Drama, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, NYCL, Suspense, TARDIS - Freeform, Tragedy, Twoshot, Wholock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-28 16:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NothingYouCouldLove/pseuds/NothingYouCouldLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new case brought to Sherlock and John has brought to light something the British government wanted to keep secret, as well as a visitor Sherlock hasn't seen in years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pt. 1

**THE PERSONAL BLOG OF DR. JOHN H. WATSON**

_19th March:_

_Incidentally, this is both the first and last case I will ever write about my adventures with the world's only consulting detective, and my best friend, Sherlock Holmes..._

\--Two Weeks Before Post--

Like any other day of any other week, the dark-haired Sherlock Holmes and the light-haired John Watson were in the main room of their flat at 221B Baker Street doing what they normally on just any day of the week waiting for a client. John sat in his chair reading the paper and hoping to find something that might rouse their interest while Sherlock was playing the violin; the ladder of the two men hadn't even bothered to change out of his pajamas, though had elected to putting a dark blue robe on over them.

But nothing was happening in the papers.

And the song that was being played was nearly over. Soon the man would be attempting to write another new song just to keep from getting bored.

John set aside the newspaper and sighed as he looked up at Sherlock, who was beginning to look bored again. He watched his best friend until the song ended. He stood up and walked over to the kitchen; on the way, he asked Sherlock if he wanted a cuppa.

"Whatever," Sherlock sighed. He sat down on the chair opposite John's and started waving the bow of his violin around like a conductor's baton, trying to think of a new composition in his head.

While waiting for the kettle to boil, John leaned back against the counter and stared up at the ceiling. He had never known an entire week to be so damned uneventful. Even after the falls of Moriarty and Moran, cases still piled up for months. As it turned out, both men had contingency plans for their eventual downfalls that every criminal ever affiliated directly with them knew of and past on when the time came.

Now, however, things were winding down. The few of Moriarty and Moran's men that remained free were still at large, hiding and awaiting the time to put to work the plans that were left for them. Apparently not every man was willing to risk his neck or freedom for the memory of those two crazy men.

Finally the kettle whistled and John pulled it off of the heat. He quickly and easily prepared the two cups of tea precisely how they both liked them. He walked back into the living room and placed Sherlock's cup in front of him on the coffee table between the two chairs before regaining his position in his chair with the Union Jack pillow propped up at his lower back.

Aside from the mild sound of John sipping at his tea, the flat had resumed it's normal silence and stillness. Sherlock still waved the bow around, conducting in his mind palace, and John was looking at a trash mag that his friend had bought to prove a point; he was seriously considering reading it just to be slightly entertained.

As luck would have it though, the doorbell rang. Once, lasting not more than ten seconds.

The two men looked to each other and smiled slightly. "Client."

Only a few moments later Mrs. Hudson showed up a blonde woman. Sherlock's eyes immediately locked onto her, studying what he could. Her bruised, bloodshot eyes suggested she hadn't slept in three--maybe four days, and she had been crying. Her clothes were newly bought but cheap, and dirtied with ketchup and mayonnaise; she had stopped at a fast food restaurant recently, most likely right before heading to 221B. A man's wedding ring on a chain around her neck while her own remained on her left hand; widowed - within the past year, judging by her clothing - but had been married happily for over twenty years. Greasy, bedraggled hair showed that she hadn't had the time in all the hours she had been awake to shower; the same could be said from the state of her plain, haggard face. Around her right wrist was a gold link-chain bracelet with a small inscription on the circular pendant Sherlock could just barely see: _To Mom, Love Stephen & Elaine_. Two children, obvious, but older, out of school, though maybe at a college. Both certainly have jobs, or they wouldn't have been able to afford such a nice present for their beloved mother. A file folder was clamped tightly in her hands, though the edge of a piece of notebook paper could be seen out of one side; a single word, "Mom," could be seen in an elegant write, but that was all.

Conclusion: something happened to one or both of this woman's children.

John stood up at the sight of the tired woman. "Please, sit down, Missus..."

"Rhodes," she told them with a heavy Scottish accent, "Alexis Rhodes. And it's just Ms. now."

"Obviously," Sherlock stated. "You're widowed. Now please sit, we've waiting far too long for you to come around."

She thanked Mrs. Hudson for showing her up to them before sliding into John's usual seat as he took the desk chair by Sherlock. A notepad was immediately in his hand so he could take notes on what their client might say.

Alexis laid the file folder in her lap and looked to Sherlock. "You know of why I came then? If you were waiting around...?"

"Not at all." Sherlock shrugged. "We're bored, and you might spice up the day. Now do tell us why you're here."

She turned her eyes down to the folder in her hands, contemplating if she should wait to give it to them until later or not. Sherlock held out his hand for it though, so she handed it over. Inside was a birth certificate for her daughter, Elaine Rhodes, born nineteen years ago. Multiple pictures of Alexis with a teenage girl and boy - her children a few years back - and with family members or friends. A diploma from the high school Elaine graduated from. A credit card bill for Elaine. And, finally, the paper that had been sticking out of the top of the folder.

_Mom,_  
 _I know you must be worried sick about me, but please, I beg you not to be. It's impossible to explain, but when I went to visit Grandpa at the cemetery, I ended up back in 1928. Nearly one hundred years in the past! I thought I had been drugged at first, but it grew harder and harder to convince myself of that as the days past by and people went about like nothing was different. I was happy throughout my life, you can be sure of that. I married the sweetest man and had the greatest daughters, all headstrong like their Grandmother. One of them, Brianna, should have been the one to deliver this letter to you as my final correspondence of my life. You should speak with her. Even though she is nearly seven years older than you, she is still your Granddaughter. Just as Sarah and Lynn are, should you ever get to meet them. I never explained anything to them, but if you could, show them everything and anything to convince them that you are my mother. Even this letter, if you must. Stephen will get a similar letter since I wrote it before I wrote this one. It was just far more difficult to write to you after all these years of not being able to even see you. Please reassure him that he's not crazy; I know how he can get. I love you._  
 _Your Daughter,_  
 _Elaine Rhodes-McDonal_

Sherlock's eyebrows knit together at the note. It was a crude prank, though he had to give credit to whoever thought it up. The paper wasn't new; it was from the early 1990s at the earliest, and had clearly been folded and left in an envelope for sometime. He grabbed the credit card bill with Elaine's signature on it and compared it to the handwriting from the note.

It was the exact same.

The detective pinched the bridge of his nose, not understanding it yet, as John looked over his shoulder to read the letter. "Ms. Rhodes, please explain now."

"Five days ago," Alexis started, "Elaine left the house to pay her respects to my father's grave. We were all close to him, especially when my husband fell ill, and it was a terrible loss when he died. Well, she didn't come home when I expected her to, so I assumed that she went to hang out with her mates, but she never called or text like she usually did. I got worried and sent Stephen out to find her just in case her phone died and she couldn't get in touch with us. No one had seen her though, so we understandably started to panic."

"Did you..." John shook his head; the letter was odd in every way. "Um, did you try to contact the police? They take cases like this quite seriously."

She shook her head. "My husband was paranoid of every branch of government, and I'm afraid it rubbed off onto me. I don't even use the bank! Stephen, my daughter's mates, and I conducted a search of, well, everywhere for the past few days. But there's been absolutely no sign of her. Then I hacked into the British government's databases - my husband taught me to do this; he was an excellent hacker - to see if I couldn't use the cameras around the country to my advantage.

"Well, I clicked on the wrong thing and ended up in a file--a high level top secret file at that. In that file were **fifteen** other cases like my Elaine's. They're in the file underneath the letter." Sherlock immediately scooped up the paper that Alexis had printed off the government's database. Fifteen people had disappeared, and following each of these were altered records; dates of birth, dates of death, age, everything. Almost every one was ended with a family member or friend ending up in the hospital. " **Fifteen** other people are gone in the same fashion as my daughter, and these people are being rewritten. The government knows something, and it might be the reason why I got a letter from Elaine saying she lived in nineteen-twenty-eight."

"So instead of trusting a government that's covering up similar cases, you come to me," Sherlock said with a matter of fact tone, "the unofficial detective of London."

"Yes."

He stared at the paper in his hands with a large degree of intensity for the longest time before closing the file and saying to Alexis, "This is the most interesting case I've had in a very, very long time." He smirked. "I will not rest until I understand every last bit of what has happened, and I promise not to involve Scotland Yard. In the mean time, please go home and rest Ms. Rhodes, you need it."

When she tried to protest, John entered into the conversation by saying, "You do need it. You look like you could pass out at any second. Please, go home and rest. We'll handle everything from here."

For the first time since her arrival, Alexis smiled, just a bit. "Thank you both so much. You have no idea how this makes me feel." She stood and left Baker Street.

When she had finally gone, Sherlock's face broke out into a wide, excited smile. He snapped the file folder shut and practically sprang up out of his chair. "Oh John, this is fantastic!"

John made a face of both mild disgust and utter confusion. "A conspiracy nutter who hacks the government's database and thinks that her daughter's part of some huge cover-up. Tell me Sherlock, how is this fantastic? We need to report her daughter missing to Scotland Yard, make sure they don't say a word to the media, and make sure she didn't have something to do with it."

"She had nothing to do with it. Didn't you see her? She was distraught, as a mother should be when her daughter has just wrote to her telling her that she was about to die and that she lived in the nineteen-twenties."

"People can fake being distraught, that's not hard. And don't argue the note," John said quickly, "because a mother could just as easily forge her child's handwriting."

Sherlock swiftly handed John the letter and the credit card bill. "Everybody's handwriting is unique to them and them alone, especially when they write in a particular style. Compare the two John, and tell me that letter wasn't written by the same person who wrote that signature."

John looked between them for the longest time before he set them aside and sighed. "You can't **really** believe this!" When Sherlock didn't say anything, John shook his head in disbelief. "It's insane. Every bit of it sounds insane! How are we even supposed to know what to look for?"

Sherlock smirked and turned his gaze out of the window. "Look out the window."

Figuring it was best to entertain the crazy that Sherlock usually spewed when on a roll, John stood and looked out of the window. He gave a very confused look to the corner right across from their flat. A bright blue police box was standing there as if it always belonged. "Are they bringing police boxes back?"

Still smirking, Sherlock strolled over to the window to stare at the police box with his friend. "No. It's just an old friend coming to help with a rather interesting case." He turned around suddenly. "You're late."

John turned too and looked at the brunette man sitting in Sherlock's chair with some surprise. He hadn't heard the door open since Alexis' departure. He was more surprised to find that the new arrival dressed more like a school teacher than the usual people Sherlock claimed as "friends" or former colleagues. As he was just staring, the man gave Sherlock a face.

"Oi, I was a little busy," he snapped. "It's not like I can just drop on in anytime I want. I had things to do, people to accompany, planets to save."

Sherlock waved off this with a flick of his wrist. "You said you would be back shortly. You're rather lucky I managed to figure out who that woman was before Scotland Yard could get to her. Mycroft would've had a fit."

The man rolled his eyes. "It's not my problem that your brother's the British government, and that 'they' aren't my biggest fan all the time."

"Um, excuse me," John cut in suddenly. "Who the hell are you?"

The man suddenly looked shocked and a little hurt. "Sherlock Holmes, did you not tell your boyfriend about me?"

"I'm not--oh, never mind."

"Never got brought up," Sherlock answered with a tiny shrug. "Besides, too busy. Cases to solve, people to save, murderers to hang."

The man laughed at the quip. "You haven't changed a bit!"

"Can't say the same for you. You had a completely different face last time we met, and a leather jacket."

"Well, regeneration is a wonderful thing you know." He sprang up to his feet. "Shall we go then? I'm really looking forward to working with you again. It's always fun!"

Sherlock gestured to the door. "After you."

"Excuse me!" John yelled. "You still haven't answered my question! Who. The. Hell. Are. You?"

"Oh," the man smiled, "I'm The Doctor, and that blue box down there is mine, before you ask. She's the TARDIS, and before you say anything about it, she is bigger on the inside."


	2. Pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided this is going to be a three-shot. Originally I was going to make a side chapter with John's case report, but I decided to do this instead.

When John stepped out of the TARDIS only a few minutes after going in, he ran around the police box. He couldn't have thought of such of thing when he was at his most imaginative! His hands rested on top of his head as he just laughed like a mad man. 

"That shouldn't be possible," he sighed when at last he quit laughing.

Sherlock and The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS while John was being enraptured by the blue box. Sherlock had managed to find a wardrobe that had a purple button-up shirt and a pair of black jeans that fit him. As that was not his first trip in the space and time machine, he new better than to question how something ended up in there, even his own clothes.

"So, Doctor," Sherlock looked around the cemetery that had been mentioned in the file as the place Ms. Rhodes' father had been buried, "why are you here?"

"I can't pop in on an old friend?" The Doctor glanced back at John, who might have been almost in hysterics about the TARDIS. "And make a new one at the same time...?"

"It's not like you." He turned on the Time Lord. "You never come around unless it involves something alien to this planet, something that Mycroft would have a field day going over." He looked at John over The Doctor's shoulder. "If Mycroft has to use that memory eraser again, it might cause serious brain-damage."

"Don't worry about John. He's been in the TARDIS, his mind should be protected from any form of hypnosis, and if not, he will still remember you. And you're too brilliant to forget any of this." The Doctor stepped around his old friend. "Come on, let's go check out some dead bodies!"

Sherlock chuckled. "Come along John or I'll leave you behind!"

At last John turned his attention from the police box to Sherlock. He jogged over to his best friend, who had already begun to follow The Doctor up towards where the man's grave was placed.

Near to the grave, Sherlock crouched down close to the ground. He was observing footsteps pressed into the mud around the grave. There were two sets; the first person had been wearing tennis shoes and had stood in front of the grave for some time, the other was barefoot and had run up to the girl. The kidnapper had been the owner of the second pair of feet, that much was obvious, but what had left Sherlock astounded was that only the barefoot kidnapper had left another trail of foot marks, and they still ran away from the scene. He crept around the grave a bit more, and even followed the footprints all the way to a crying angel statue, hoping to find something to suggest that Elaine Rhodes had been with the kidnapper as they ran away.

With his eyebrows knit together and his teeth ground in utter annoyance at the sudden quick defeat, Sherlock stalked back over to The Doctor and John. He shoved his hands into his jean pockets. Something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out why. "Two sets of feet," he said out loud so that he could tell his two companions, "but only one leaving. The one that left was running, but..." He bent back down to look closer at the footprint.

"What is it Sherlock?" John looked at another one of the footprints but couldn't see anything wrong with it.

"These foot marks," Sherlock crouched down and pointed directly at the footprint, "they have no distinction. They're just plain and smooth...like stone."

"Stone?" The Doctor bent down at the waist to look at the mark. "Well that's odd..." He looked at Sherlock. "What's your conclusion?" He smiled a little, hoping for something from the great detective.

Sherlock knit his eyebrows together. "I have none as of yet." He stood back up. "John," his friend looked to him, "I'm going to consult some of my colleagues in the homeless network; I want you and The Doctor to go to Scotland Yard for information."

John shook his head. "No Sherlock. We promised Alexis--"

"Not important. Besides, we promised not to involve Scotland Yard. We promised nothing about involving Lestrade."

"He's part of--"

"Then tell him it's imperative that he not tell anyone else in the office. Really John, it's not advanced chemistry or anything." He quickly text someone off of his phone before he turned away. "I'm off. I should be back at Baker Street before nightfall. Be there by then."

"Okay." John looked to The Doctor when Sherlock was far enough away. "Shall we take the, uh..." He pointed to the police box.

"TARDIS," The Doctor finished for him. "No, we can walk." He smiled again as he looked around. "It's a nice day." He started walking, not noticing that it took John a moment to walk up behind him.

After a few blocks in silence, John stepped up to walk next to The Doctor. "How do you know Sherlock? I don't remember you saying."

He smiled a bit. "He and Mycroft traveled with me for a very short time when they were children." When John gave him a concerned look, he continued, "They insisted on coming along to see some pirates when I mentioned it...well, Sherlock insisted on seeing the pirates and Mycroft wouldn't let him go alone. Didn't trust me."

"Pirates? You took two children to see real pirates?"

"Oh, nothing happened. Well, when I say nothing, I mean that Sherlock was only the hostage of the Pirate Queen Mitai of Ariada for a short time. He actually escaped and fought off quite a few of them before I even made it to the ship."

John's mouth dropped open. "And you wonder why Mycroft didn't trust you?"

"Still doesn't." The Time Lord pointed up to Big Ben as they were approaching it. "Under Mycroft's direction, the government installed a type of memory device in Big Ben. When activated, it erases the memories of everyone in London of one specific thing. Me. Or, really, anything related to me."

"I don't understand why that would even exist."

"A few years back, during Christmas time, nearly everyone in London evacuated under the belief that an alien attack would occur again on Christmas Day. It devastated the economy, and the government thought it would be best to take the extra measure to be sure nobody would do anything like that again."

"No." John shook his head. "A few years back I was in London for Christmas and the city was alive like it always is. I remember." The Doctor stopped suddenly and grabbed John's wrist, dragging him back into an alley. The former soldier looked a bit scared when the other man grabbed the neck of his leather jacket. "What're you--"

"Memories of that Christmas. This will hurt." The Doctor head-butt John hard enough to send him stumbling back; he had to grab a trash can to keep himself from falling over. He grabbed his head as the memories of the empty London streets ran through his head. Only one man was on the streets of London, and he was happy to see The Doctor and the girl he was with. The man didn't even seem to notice the strange aliens walking around looking in the shop windows.

As The Doctor moaned about never doing that again, John's hand slipped off of the trash can lid and he fell to the ground. "What the hell was that?"

"I told you," he held out his hand for John to take, "memories of that Christmas."

"How is that possible?" John stood up, looking confusingly at the Time Lord. "It doesn't seem real."

"You should open your mind a little more; you did just have a trip in a time and space machine." The Doctor strolled back out of the alley with John right behind. "Even Sherlock didn't freak out as much during his first trip."

"Well," John rubbed his forehead where a red mark had developed, "how come Sherlock remembers you then if that thing erases memories of you?"

"Do you even need to ask? Sherlock is clever, for one, and it would take more than a parlor trick to affect his mind. Secondly, once you've been in TARDIS, it's implanted into your deepest subconscious. You can forget me for a moment or two, but not much longer. The memories come flooding back without your knowledge, fitting back into place as if they never left."

"Okay..."

...

Lestrade looked hard at John and his new friend; his hands were folded in front of his face. He didn't doubt Sherlock's methods when he was working on a case, but this was something Lestrade knew nothing about, and both of the men in front of him refused to give any information until he himself promised not to involve anyone else from Scotland Yard. It was a difficult decision for him to make; he would always jump on an opportunity to work with Sherlock Holmes, but on the other hand, he couldn't risk his career once again just to have Sherlock's name be all over a high-profile case. If that was indeed what he was working on.

Finally he leaned back in his chair and rested his folded hands on his stomach. "I don't know if I can do this John. I trust Sherlock and you, but this new guy here, uh..."

"Smith," The Doctor told him, "John Smith. I'm an old friend of Sherlock's, and I...brought the case to his attention."

John rolled his eyes while Lestrade wasn't looking; if any excuse would work though, that one just might. "Lestrade, please just agree to it. We would all be grateful, and I'm sure I could convince Sherlock into paying you back somehow."

"What's the case though? If it's something that's too high-profile, I'm going to have to involve other people. That's just protocol."

"If you must know, we just need information," The Doctor jumped in again. "It has to be of absolute secrecy though due to the delicate nature of the case."

"If you brought the case to Sherlock, why do need more information from me? Don't you know what he needs to know?"

"It's a peculiar case. Even I don't know much about it. No one does."

"Which is why we need you to agree to not involving anyone else from Scotland Yard. If this gets out," John glanced at The Doctor, "it might mean bad publicity for everyone, including all of the government. And I for one don't want to deal with Mycroft over the matter."

Lestrade sighed and ran his hands over his face; he nodded. He had no clue what Sherlock was up to, but if it could really do so much by a slip of the tongue, he figured it was best if he take it on. "Alright," he held his hands out to the two men sitting across from him, "what's going on? What information do you need from me?"

John produced a notepad from his back pocket. "A girl vanished from her grandfather's grave a few days ago, and not even Sherlock can pick up signs of what became of her at the time of her, well, he seems to think it was a kidnapping. But from what the girl's mother found, there were several other disappearances with the same characteristics. Has Scotland Yard received any strange disappearance reports lately? Anything that nobody could explain?"

Lestrade shook his head and shrugged. "Missing persons cases aren't my division. I only get involved if the guy in charge can't stand to work with Sherlock, which, as you know, happens quite a bit. However, I haven't heard anything that would make something seem like a case that Sherlock would be interested in. The few missing persons cases that have ended up floating my way haven't been anything special; just kidnapping and homicide."

"So, no one's come forward saying something weird about a missing family member or friend?"

Suddenly a look of realization came over Lestrade; he sat up-right in his chair and looked through the papers on his desk. "Now that you mention it, I had an older man come in here about a week ago." He plucked a piece of paper out from the pile. "Here it is." He handed it over. A bunch of notes were scribbled all over it, but it didn't seem like an official report was drawn up. "He kept going on and on about a statue that moved towards his wife every time he blinked. He said that, at first, he thought he was starting to feel the effects of some new medicine, but then he said his wife vanished. All that was left was the angel statue, and then when he brought his daughter to show her this statue, it was gone."

"Sounds more than a little odd. Maybe it's the early stages of dementia; a medicine to create an illusion like that would have to be something very strong or new." John turned his head as he held out the paper for The Doctor to take, but saw a look of horror and knowing there. He leaned forward at the look. "Doctor?"

"Two doctors named John?" Lestrade made a face. "I almost feel sorry for Sherlock."

"Yes..." The Doctor snapped his gaze up at Lestrade just before he stood up. "Thank you Detective Inspector; remember to not tell a soul of this. It's a dangerous business. Come along Doctor Watson." He spun around the chair and was out the door before John could even get up.

"Thank you." John shot up out of the chair to follow The Doctor out of Scotland Yard. Just outside of the building, he grabbed onto The Doctor's should to stop him. "What's wrong? What is it?"

The Time Lord looked around before he leaned in close to John and said softly, "There are things in the universe that are dangerous, **very** dangerous. One of these races are statues, Weeping Angels, and by no means are these statues mindless. They're dangerous killers, and when they have their sights set, they will pursue someone until they kill them. However, they're trapped in a time lock, meaning that they can't move when being looked at. It fits perfectly with what the old man told your friend in there."

"And one of them is still on the loose," John stated.

"Yes."

He paled. "Sherlock." He dug his cell phone out of his pocket to dial his best friend. He paced quickly back and forth until Sherlock finally picked up. "Thank God. Sherlock, get back to Baker Street now. We have information that will interest you." He nodded. "Right. See you there." He stepped out to the curb to hail a cab.

"Not walking this time?" The Doctor stepped up next to him.

"No time." He yanked open the cab door and jumped inside; he told the driver the address as The Doctor jumped in behind him.

...

John ran into 221B with The Doctor right behind only to find Sherlock relaxing in his chair with his violin. He stopped plucking at it to look up at his two friends when they entered.

"John," he set the violin aside, "Doctor...what have you found?"

"Weeping Angels." The Doctor now paced back and forth as John sat down in his chair.

"You're going to have to elaborate."

"They're statues," John said. "Killer statues."

"A race of statues trapped in a time lock called Weeping Angels. They look no different from a statue in a graveyard or decorating the outside of a church. On Earth, they can blend in seamlessly and anyone who sees them thinks that they're imagining it. They can be right in front of you and then you blink," The Doctor snapped, "and they're gone."

"They've struck before haven't they?" Sherlock pressed his fingertips together.

"Yes."

"So the government knows what's causing all of these disappearances, and they're covering them up. But without using the memory eraser. They're creating an awkward challenge for themselves."

"They only use it after the entity has left the planet though, and the Weeping Angels never leave the planet. It's easier to just cover it all up."

John looked between the two and then asked, "What do we tell Alexis then? I highly doubt she'll believe that killer statues are behind all of this."

"No," Sherlock sighed, "we'll come up with something else to tell her." He looked back to The Doctor. "How do these things--these Weeping Angels kill?"

"When they touch you, they send you back in time. Sometimes, very far back, other times, just far enough back so that you can die beside the ones you cared for during this life." The Doctor shrugged. "Either way, they get the years you were supposed to live when they send you back. In a way, this makes them impossible to kill, and unless they starve, they never die."

"This is what you got from Lestrade?" Sherlock smirked. "I might actually have to thank him."

"Well, he gave us some information and The Doctor put it together," John pointed out.

"I see. Well," Sherlock stood up again, "shall we go fetch the TARDIS? I'm sure we can think of a few things to tell our client as to her daughter's disappearance on the way." He walked out of the door with his only two friends right behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The planet mentioned here, Ariada, and the Pirate Queen Mitai are of my own creation.


	3. Pt. 3 and Case Report

Inside of a cab that John had to hail, The Doctor looked between Sherlock and John. He was no fool, he could sense something between them, but it felt complicated. And not even complicated in the way he was used to between some of his companions and him. He specifically remembered Rose and Martha when thinking, but he quickly made his mind push the thought away. Now wasn't the best time to be dwelling on them.

He watched as John looked over to Sherlock as if to say something, but the cab suddenly screeched to a halt. Sherlock grabbed the door and John's arm as they were thrust forward. Regardless of this, John still ended up in The Doctor's lap. Before The Doctor could make a joke about it to his friends, the cab driver yelled, "Who the hell put a statue in the center of the street?!"

All three of the riders' eyes widened. "What?!"

"Don't blink!" The Doctor screamed as he jumped out of the cab with Sherlock and John. The cabbie turned his head when he heard the statement, confused by it, giving the Angel the opening it wanted. It broke through the windshield and grabbed him around the neck; he was gone in the next instance.

Once the cabbie had unfortunately been sent back in time, The Doctor kept his eyes on the Angel that was now on the hood of the cab.

"Doctor," Sherlock said frantically, "they're closing."

"'They'?" He yelled back.

"Yeah," John answered for Sherlock. Both of the humans had their eyes on at least three Weeping Angels a piece that had closed in while everyone's eyes had been on their cab. "Is this normal behaviour for Weeping Angels?"

"No, they never come out into the open like this. Well," The Doctor shrugged, "except for the Statue of Liberty."

"The **what**?!"

"Worry about that another time John," Sherlock said back. Another Angel appeared in his line of sight. "Right now we have to get away from here. Ideas?"

"Well, it does help that people are starting to notice the Angels are now all on the ground." The Doctor turned to Sherlock and John; enough people were gathered around the cab that he felt safe-ish for the moment. "Let's go before we start getting questions."

The three took the opportunity to walk away, weaving through the crowd in the direction of the cemetery. At least they could count on the fact that they were close to their destination, and therefore the TARDIS.

Unfortunately, the closer they got to the cemetery, the less people there were to intercept the Weeping Angels there seemed to be following them. After a point, Sherlock was walking backwards while John and The Doctor were sidestepping. The moment they each had five Angels each in their sights, John asked what the huge plan was to escape.

The Doctor made a face; he really didn't anticipate the Angels to follow them so closely. He also didn't anticipate there to be as many Weeping Angels in London as there once had been in Manhattan. He suddenly got a flashback of Rory and Amy, and a terrible feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. The way things were looking, history would repeat itself.

"Doctor!" Sherlock screamed when John grabbed his wrist; three more had appeared.

"Uh...run!" The Doctor turned and ran. Sherlock and John followed quickly behind with their hands now locked so Sherlock, who ran a little faster, wouldn't leave John behind.

They kept running, eventually leaving the road to run through the grass to the TARDIS when it came into sight.

When the three were so close to the police box that The Doctor was grabbing the key from his pocket, John's hand tugged sharply on Sherlock's as he screamed.

Sherlock looked back in time to see John replaced by a Weeping Angel. "John!" His eyes watered and dashed around, looking frantically for any sign John escaped while trying to keep his eyes on the Angels in front of him. When he didn't see him anywhere, he slowly backed up towards the TARDIS yelling for The Doctor.

The Doctor ran over to Sherlock and grabbed the back of his jacket to pull him towards the TARDIS. "We have to go."

"But John--"

"Is gone Sherlock." He pulled the consulting detective back with a little more ease now. "I'm so sorry."

Once the Time Lord got them into the TARDIS and locked the door, he ran over to the console. Swiftly, he transported them back to Baker Street.

When they landed, The Doctor looked to Sherlock, who was just staring at him with hate and sadness in his eyes. He walked over to the human. "Sherlock, listen to me. We--" He was stopped by Sherlock's fist flying into his face.

"Take me back! John might still be alive!"

The Doctor tried very hard to ignore his bleeding nose and grabbed onto Sherlock's shoulders. "He's gone Sherlock," he pulled Sherlock into a hug even though he knew the detective may not like it, "he's gone." He rested his head on Sherlock's shoulder; he could feel his friend shaking, though from rage or sadness he wasn't sure.

Then suddenly The Doctor found himself shaking too. He didn't even know if he told Sherlock John was gone for Sherlock's benefit, or because of what happened only a month ago with the Ponds.

...

"'Inconclusive'?!" Alexis screamed at The Doctor. "I gave Mr. Holmes all of the information he needed to find my little girl, and he couldn't find her?!"

"I'm sorry, but there's just simply not enough to go on. Even Sherlock Holmes has his limitations," The Doctor lied.

She scowled and tried to push past him to get up the stairs to the living room of 221B. "Let me speak with him! I have to hear it from his mouth!"

"Now is not a good time!"

"How come?!"

The Doctor made a face and said carefully, "He lost the only person he really cares about yesterday. If you want to speak with him about the result of your case, you might want to wait for a while."

"But my daughter--"

"Ma'am," Lestrade said as he walked into the building, "please go. I'm from Scotland Yard," he said quickly before Alexis could continue to protest, "and I know Sherlock Holmes well. I can contact you later about your case if you want, but right now, he just needs to be left alone."

Alexis was pale and enraged that a man from Scotland Yard was here. She couldn't tell him anything or it might end badly, so she said, "No, never mind. Thank Mr. Holmes for trying." She turned and left.

Lestrade looked at The Doctor when the woman left. "Was that Sherlock's client?"

"I believe so." The Doctor looked at Lestrade. "Great to see you again." He looked at him with his head tilted. "You look like someone I met before."

"I saw you yesterday."

"No, before then." After a moment, The Doctor shook his head. "Never mind that."

Lestrade cocked one eyebrow at The Doctor, unsure how to take the man's quirkiness. He wasn't used to such a thing while at Baker Street. "Okay... Um, how's Sherlock doing?"

"How do you think?" The Doctor turned towards the stairs and led Lestrade up to the flat's living room.

Sherlock was sitting at his chair in his night clothes and dressing gown, and his violin in his lap. He wasn't even plucking it, it was just sitting there with his fingers hovering over the strings. His eyes were trained on the ceiling, but not on anything in particular. He wasn't necessarily bored, but he didn't know how to take being without John knowing that he wouldn't be coming back from Sarah's in the afternoon. He looked at John's empty chair, suddenly knowing how John must have felt when he disappeared after his final confrontation with Moriarty.

Of course, for Sherlock, there was no chance of things going back to normal.

John was dead.

Lestrade looked to The Doctor for a moment before he walked over to Sherlock. "Hey, are you...?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Sherlock lied; he knew even Lestrade would pick up the waver in his voice and redness of his eyes. He had been crying at points throughout the night, something he would never admit to anybody. Even he refuses to believe that he had cried at all, instead writing it off as a dream or nightmare. "I just lost my only friend, but I'm **fine**." He plucked harshly at one string on his violin.

Though both other men in the room felt a bit hurt at the statement, they didn't show it. Sherlock had lost the one person everyone was rather certain he cared about in the entire world. Hell, even his own brother didn't bring such emotion from him - with the exception of anger or contempt of course.

Unsure of what to say, Lestrade and The Doctor just stood there watching Sherlock glare at the empty chair, and exchanging looks between themselves.

After one terribly long minute of this, Mrs. Hudson came into room with a young man. He had brown-blonde hair and brown eyes, was in a leather jacket and dark blue jeans, and was carrying an envelope with Sherlock's name written on it.

Lestrade turned to the young man first. "I'm sorry, but in case you didn't see the sign on the door, Mr. Holmes is not taking any clients right now."

"I'm not a client," the young man said. "I have a note for Mr. Holmes from my great-great-grandfather." He stepped forward and held it out to Sherlock, who elected to continue ignoring him. The man took a breath and said, "My name is Jonathan Watson the fifth," now Sherlock looked up him, "and my grandfather, who the family still thinks is a total nutter even after all these years, left this note to be delivered to you at this date."

When Sherlock snatched away the note, Jonathan turned away to leave. He looked at Lestrade. "I left my address and number in the envelope, tell him if he wants to call me."

Lestrade nodded slowly, very confused. "Sure..."

Just as the man left, Sherlock jumped up out of his chair with a revitalized look in his entire body. "Go away," he told Lestrade and The Doctor. He scribbled something down on a piece of paper and then glanced back at them. "Lestrade I'll call you when I need the Yard's help. Doctor, come here for a moment."

The Doctor walked up to Sherlock as Lestrade left even more confused still. He looked down at the paper Sherlock handed him. There was only a date on it. "What's this?"

"According to this note," Sherlock gestured to it with a smile, "it's the date that John was sent to when the Angel sent him back."

"Sherlock, I can't--"

"Yes, yes, time locks and all that, it's explained in the note. However," Sherlock stood up and walked over to where John had kept his cane stored, "there is something you need to return to him." He handed The Doctor the cane. "Just to let him know I received the note. Also," he quickly wrote out another note, folded it, then handed it over, "give that to him as well. Be sure you arrive before he meets **my** grandfather, the first Sherlock Holmes. Also tell him that he is definitely well missed, and always will be."

Before The Doctor could even ask, Sherlock plopped down at behind the desk and logged into John's personal blog to type out the case report that had been written up over a hundred years ago.

The Time Lord saw this and smiled. He had a task to do before he could move on to other adventures, and he would do it quickly. He left Baker Street for the last time to travel back to the year 1881 to give John Hamish Watson a proper goodbye from the man's best friend.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*CASE REPORT*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*

 

**THE PERSONAL BLOG OF DR. JOHN H. WATSON**

_19th March:_

** The Angels of London **

**This is Sherlock Holmes, writing on behalf of Dr. Watson, who is no longer with us. This is, regrettably, the final entry for my cases that will ever be posted on this blog.**

_**Dr. Watson's case report:** _

Incidentally, this is both the first and last case I will ever write about my adventures with the world's only consulting detective, and my best friend, Sherlock Holmes.

I thought I had hit the boredom cure of the century when Ms. Alexis Rhodes walked into the flat. Sherlock was very near to that point of his boredom that he would start becoming an arrogant dick, which I didn't feel like I could handle at that moment.

Alexis was a normal-enough-looking Scottish woman in her late 40s, I assumed, had two children, and clearly had not had much sleep the past few days. She quickly told us a strange story about how her daughter had disappeared visiting her grandfather's grave with no evidence left behind as to who might have taken her. She handed Sherlock a file with the names and reported disappearances of several others who had disappeared in the same strange way. Then she even handed him a letter from her daughter that was dated all the way back to 1928! I didn't believe it was genuine, and I was certain that Sherlock didn't.

However, Sherlock agreed to take her case, though he was probably just glad for something to cure the rampant boredom. Of course, it most definitely helped that an old friend of Sherlock's decided to come visit. He even agreed to help with the case, and he was a tremendous help as he knew quite a bit more about our strange foe.

The man, known simply as "The Doctor," helped us to piece together the series of disappearances as the work of an alien entity known as the "Weeping Angels."

Terrifying creatures, the Weeping Angels appear to be normal stone angel statues when you look at them, but the moment you look away, they move lightening fast. A single touch from a Weeping Angel will send you back into time, something Sherlock and I witnessed with The Doctor during a cab ride to the cemetery where Alexis' daughter originally vanished from.

Beyond this point, I have limited knowledge, so I am hoping for Sherlock Holmes to fill in the ending for me.

We ran, the three of us, to The Doctor's transportation - let's call it that - in the hopes of escapes the many Weeping Angels that were chasing us at that point. Even The Doctor seemed terrified of these things, like he hadn't been expecting so many.

Well...this is where my story ends. While we were running, one of the Weeping Angels got me and I was hurled back to the year 1881, where I have actually recently met Sherlock Holmes the **first**. And, believe me, I can see where my Sherlock got his...let's call it, attitude.

___**End of Dr. Watson's case report** _ _ _   
___  
_   
__**The investigation as to the disappearance of Alexis Rhodes' daughter is closed. A Weeping Angel is responsible for her daughter's disappearance, which explains the letter Ms. Rhodes received. Both Scotland Yard and the British government would never believe the story, however, so the official statement is that this is a "cold case," and will probably never be solved.** _ _


End file.
